Is A Wife A Disposable Earning Machine Who Can Be Discarded Once Her Use Is Over? #TrueStory

This true story convinced me that even today, most women are solely blamed for failed marriages and receive little support from family and friends.

A recent story of a turbulent marriage has been on my mind for days now. Without going on to the identity of the people concerned, I’ll tell you the story behind this marriage.

These two college sweethearts got married after they both got jobs. The wife lived with the husband and his retired widowed mother. While they were both working, there were some problems at the man’s workplace and so he left his job to pursue his passion in the creative fields. He was without a job for two and a half years, while the wife managed the household expenses, including the cost for their child who was born a year ago. She also paid for the housing instalments for the house which the man and his mother had bought earlier.

Though they were not the ideal couple in terms of compatibility, they did try to adjust with each other and things were going okay. The man started getting freelancing assignments as he was doing well in his field. Slowly his name started reaching influential circuits and he started getting more and more assignments. After 2.5 years, he also got a steady day job in the same field and spent his weekends on the freelance assignments.

Now the child was growing up. Both the parents were busy so the grandmother mostly looked after the child, his schoolwork, his meals and so on. The grandmother started complaining about her responsibilities once the man got the steady job, saying why can’t the woman take up a lighter job and look after the child, now that the man was earning?

Things took a turn for the worse, when the man started having flings with other women belonging to the same glamorous industry where he freelanced. When his wife confronted him, he refused to change his ways. They started having frequent fights and arguments over this. The mother-in-law and the relatives from the son’s side, instead of asking him to change his ways, asked the woman to adjust. But she was adamant that she couldn’t compromise and he needed to stop being disloyal.

The mother-in-law fell ill because of the frequent arguments and shouting matches between the couple and so everybody decided that it would be best for everyone if the woman just left. The husband was of the opinion that either she needed to accept his ‘carefree lifestyle’ or she had to leave.

Currently, the husband earns almost three times of what the wife earns. Their financial conditions have improved and the wife’s financial assistance is no more required for running the family.

My questions are:

Is this woman a disposable earning machine that once her services aren’t required, she can be asked to leave?

How come the man can get away with having affairs and refusing to change his ways and yet none of his family members see this as a crime?

What is wrong with her wanting to stay and fight it out? Why are they up in arms against her and want to just get rid of her?

What about the child and his well-being?

Most importantly, where does the woman go now? Her mother is not close to her, she doesn’t have close friends, and all family members from her husband’s side are out there to blame her for her mother-in-law’s deteriorating health or for the problems in their marriage.

Yes, one might ask, why is she not opting for a divorce? But isn’t that her personal choice? The reasons why we choose to sustain or leave a relationship is completely personal. I do not know why she is choosing to stay but I do feel hopelessly sad for her, and I want her to know that there are people out there who support her. I feel that no marriage is perfect and it requires real effort from both the husband and the wife to make it a success. Then why are statements like, ‘Yes, her husband was a bad person but still she still adjusted and so she had a family of her own instead of a broken marriage’ still considered justified?

I wish I had answers to all these questions and could help her in some way but I do not know how to go about with it. I just wish her peace and the strength to come out of this storm. If you have any suggestions for her, please feel free to comment. I will share those with her.

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Comments

2 Comments

Kasturi,
Thank you for sharing this story. I am incredibly saddened and shocked to read the unfolding of events in your friend’s life. You ask some difficult and relevant questions. But you forgot to raise the most important question though. For me after reading the story, the one question that came to mind and the one that you brushed aside saying it was the women’s preference to want to stay in the relationship is the one that needs to be addressed here. Would you be saying the same thing, that it should not matter to us why someone would want to stay in the relationship if for instance the husband was physically abusive to her? Wouldn’t we be the first ones to be telling her to get out of the relationship if that were the case? Then how come we give leeway when it comes to mental abuse which sometimes can be far worse and far more damaging than physical abuse.
The one answer I would like to provide to all your question about why and how this could happen is that life is not fair, especially to us women and we need to recognize that and act accordingly. The man is putting all his cards on the table. He is what he is. Why he is that way, how he can be that way is just our way of dealing with a bad situation. He is wrong of course, but there is nothing anyone could do to make him change his behavior. Does the wife really think that her husband can act logically as
If (IamNice == True) then myHusbandShouldBeNice = true;
If only men were as logical as programming languages. They are not. They don’t claim to be. Yes, they can be unfaithful bastards who take maximum advantage of their wives. They don’t claim to be anything else. So why should we expect them to be just because we are decent human beings? Even if they agree with everything their wife’s claims, there is nothing much they could do about it. It is our fault for giving them the chance to treat us like this.
You friend needs to get out of this marriage. If she wants to stay (for whatever reason) then she should stay with the complete knowledge that he is going to behave like a dog always. He is not going to change. No one changes basically. It is only circumstances around people that make them put layers on their personalities. The core personality remains the same. So if she were to stay in the marriage I would say let her get off the bandwagon of what the husband should and should not do. He won’t. If she still continues with the marriage that is completely her prerogative, but I don’t think she has any right to complain. Life is unfair, don’t expect people to be nice just because you are. She is setting up herself to be hurt even more by still having expectations from him. I hope she doesn’t.

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